Paths Of Glory (1957)

Screen shot from Warner DVD of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

WHO: Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed this.

WHAT: One of the most generally well-regarded films of all time, it has the distinction of being one of only ten films released prior to 1960 on the utterly populist (if male-film-geek-centric) imdb all-time top sixty. I've long considered it my own least favorite of Kubrick's thirteen feature films, which is praising it with faint damnation, as I like or love all of that iconoclast's pictures. It has astonishing battle sequences and a remarkably affecting ending feature Kubrick's soon-to-be-wife Christiane, the niece of German director Veit Harlan (infamous for making the Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß). But I've always felt its treatment of the meaning of war to be more ponderous and less interestingly nuanced than other Kubrick war pictures like Fear and Desire and Full Metal Jacket, or even Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and Barry Lyndon. Perhaps it's just my usual allergy to courtroom scenes (most agree this one's is among the greatest ever filmed). I've always meant to see it again at some point. There are two upcoming opportunities to do so on the big screen.

WHERE/WHEN: At the Pacific Film Archive in Berkely, at 7PM tonight and on Saturday, September 6th at 6:30 PM.

WHY:  It's rare, perhaps even unprecedented, for the Pacific Film Archive to screen the same film twice in a period of fifteen days, as part of two separate series. But Paths of Glory is the penultimate program in the centennial-focused World War I on Film (which closes Wednesday with the great All Quiet on the Western Front) and also comes early in that venue's Kubrick retrospective being held just over fifteen years after his death. Last week the PFA announced this series as well as the rest of its September and October schedule (with a number of select November and December screenings revealed as well). A brief rundown:

Perhaps the most exciting reveal is the Fall's first half of a fifty-title survey of cinema originating from the (now former, of course) Soviet republic of Georgia, where an astonishingly large portion of great Soviet-era filmmakers including Otar Iosseliani and Sergei Paradjanov have had roots. Those big-name filmmakers may be saved for the Spring section of the series, but the coming semester features filmmakers like the silent-era's Ivan Perestiani, the later Soviet era's Eldar Shengelaia, and modern-day directors like Levan Koguashvili and Nana Janelidze. The latter three will be on hand for screenings of their films and others'. I'm excited to dig into this all-but-unknown corner of world cinema; the only four films from the Fall program I've seen thus far are the four by Mikhail Kalatozov screening November 22-29. All four are brilliant, most especially Cranes Are Flying, my own pick for 1957's greatest anti-war picture.

A focus on Jean-Luc Godard's career from 1968-1979 would be impossible to say a bad word about, had the Spring 2014 retrospective of his films up to 1967 not set such a high standard by showing every film he made during that period, including rarely-seen shorts. Though most everyone prefers 1960s Godard to 1970s, it's somewhat disappointing that very little of his Dziga Vertov Group filmmaking is being included in this segment of the series, and that, aside from 35mm screenings of Sympathy For The Devil, Tout Va Bien, Every Man For Himself (a.k.a. Slow Motion) and perhaps Letter To Jane, at least half the screenings are to be digital. It feels churlish to complain when several of the digital showings involve use of (analog) video, and/or are introduced by Godard-connected luminaries like PFA founder Tom Luddy (who appears in One P.M.) and Jean-Pierre Gorin (who co-directed Ici Et Ailleurs and others of this era). But this series is called "Expect Everything From Cinema", and although I try not to expect everything from my cinematheque, part one of this multi-part retrospective got my hopes up. Perhaps the next installment in the series, covering the underrated 1980s (and beyond?) will be more comprehensive.

By contrast, the PFA's October-December Hou Hsiao-Hsien retrospective, the first in Frisco Bay since before Millenium Mambo premiered, includes all eighteen of the Taiwanese master's feature films, all shown on 35mm prints except for The Green, Green Grass of Home, for which a 16mm print will substitute. I've never seen any of Hou's films prior to Goodbye South, Goodbye, other than the astonishing City of Sadness, so I'm thrilled with this essentially complete retrospective.

More PFA offerings in September and October will include a fascinating-sounding commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Berkeley's Free Speech movement, with documentaries of the era and beyond, one-night-stand screenings of new films about Ai Weiwei and Mike Seeger, and a complete, all-DCP presentation of James Dean's brief filmography. Finally, weekly experimental moving image screenings under the Alternative Visions header include in-person appearances from animator Laura Heit, local Jerome Hiler, and, for two nights in a row, Leslie Thornton, as well as two evenings devoted to multi-projector screenings and another two devoted the legendary James Broughton as his centennial year winds down.

HOW: Unfortunately, Paths of Glory is the only film in the World War I on Film series screening on DCP (something of a paradox given the series title). More unfortunately, it's among the strong majority of the Kubrick series selections to screen that way, the exceptions being the 35mm prints of Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss, of Spartacus, and of the ideal Halloween-at-PFA movie, Eyes Wide Shut.

The Shining (1980)

WHO: Stanley Kubrick.

WHAT: You don't have to be a Kubrick fan, a horror movie fan, a Jack Nicholson fan, or a Stephen King fan to love and/or be obsessed by The Shining. It incorporates all of those broad categories of fandom but transcends them as well. So much has been said about this film, but I'm sure there's more to say. I'll have to leave that for another day however, and simply link to this amazing site for The Shining devotees.

WHERE/WHEN: 9PM tonight only at the Balboa Theatre, presented as part of Another Hole In The Head.

WHY: Unless you're a big Jaws fan this is clearly the greatest film playing this year's Another Hole In The Head film festival (I'm prejudging a lot of unseen horror films by saying this, but we're talking about what I consider to be an all-time masterpiece here). It's also the last "HoleHead" screening at the Balboa before the festival moves to New People in Japantown (where a digital "backwards and forwards" screening inspired by the movie Room 237 will occur next Thursday night.)

Not only that, it's screening in 35mm, an occurrence I'd expected to disappear now that a digital version of the film has been the go-to theatrical distribution method for Warner Brothers. The Castro and Roxie have both been forced to show The Shining digitally in recent years, and a "last-ever" 35mm screening happened over a year and a half ago (with the last Frisco Bay screening further back in history than that; my last viewing was almost precisely four years ago). I have no idea where and how the SF IndieFest folks who run HoleHead got this print and the permission to show it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not another long while before there's another chance to see it unspool this way. If ever.

HOW: Billed as a "perfect" 35mm print.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

WHO: Stanley Kubrick.

WHAT: 2013 would have been the 50th anniversary of Kubrick's last (and perhaps greatest- though The Killing certainly gives it a run for its money at the least) black-and-white film, had it premiered in December of 1963 as originally scheduled. The film wrapped production in April of that year, but the first advance press screening wasn't scheduled until November 22. This screening was cancelled when news came of President Kennedy's assassination that day, and the film would not be unveiled until January of 1964, as it was felt that audiences would be in no mood for pitch-dark political comedy so soon after. There has even been speculation that the infamous "pie fight" ending of the film was cut because it showed Peter Sellers as President Muffley being hit by a custard confection; Kubrick later maintained he cut it because it didn't fit with the rest of the film's tone.

Bill Krohn describes the film in his excellent book on Kubrick:

Made in England on sound stages and on futuristic locations, Dr. Strangelove (1964) was a meteor. Kubrick had fused documentary realism and grotesque comedy to portray the American military-political establishment as fools and madmen, putting on the screen for the first time the kind of satire made popular by Mad magazine.

WHERE/WHEN: Today at 3:30 and 7:15 at the Castro Theatre.

WHY: With the current news about probable air strikes in Syria, it may not feel like the best day to watch a film that turns the raw material of bombs and international diplomacy into fodder for humor. Then again, maybe today's just the right day to see a thoughtful satire made at the height of the Cold War. Dr. Strangelove screens with another 1960s nuclear-themed comedy made in England, Richard Lester's The Bed-Sitting Room; I haven't seen that one as it's far rarer, but Kubrick's film, at least, doesn't feel the least bit like escapism. Sometimes comedy is the best method of addressing the horrors of the world.

HOW: Though its double-bill-mate The Bed-Sitting Room screens in 35mm, Dr. Strangelove will screen digitally from a 4K restoration prepared by Sony's Grover Crisp. This version has screened before in the North Bay and the South Bay but I'm pretty sure this is the debut presentation of this digital version in San Francisco. Sort of.

In July 2012 the San Francisco Silent Film Festival brought Crisp to the Castro to show off the digital Dr. Strangelove by giving it a head-to-head competition against the first reel of a 35mm print of the film, both with the sound muted so Crisp could speak and answer questions from the audience. It was an interesting presentation, held on a much larger screen than a similar presentation in New York earlier in the year. I would be more interested to see a head-to-head between a digital Strangelove (or any 4K restoration) and a newly-struck print of a photo-chemical restoration, rather than with an average release print struck years ago. But those who felt the DCP handily "won" the match-up will finally get to see the full version at the Castro today.

If you've ever thought Dr. Strangelove would be better or truer to Kubrick's vision if the level of image detail was so clear that you could identify objects on the table reflected in the mirror behind Tracy Reed in the bravura single-shot scene pictured above, you might prefer this DCP version. I for one am not convinced that this degree of image clarity was intended by Kubrick (who surely considered the contemporary capabilities of lab reproduction of prints as well as he did other details like attendance patterns at urban theatres across the U.S. or projectionist changeover) in the first place. I hope the presence of a DCP version of Dr. Strangelove doesn't mean we'll never see a 35mm print and its attendant flicker and filmic quality that Kubrick probably never expected his films to lose when projected in cinemas. I have a feeling the Castro will also show The Shining on DCP when it comes (via the new September calendar) a month from now. But I'd love to be proven wrong when the theatre announces the formats for the coming month's films, which I expect to be any day now.